If my skin were the same colour as Vinicius Jr.’s and a hundred strangers called me a fucking nigger every day on my way to work, then perhaps I would think that I was indeed living in a racist country. Not a completely racist one, of course (I don’t even know if such a country exists, and I’m referring to one in which all its citizens are racist, or at least a large majority), but there must or could be some racism in a society that accepts normalising racist insults to a young black man and doesn’t dismiss them with absolute contempt, without half-truths or false dilemmas, regardless of whether he plays football for Real Madrid or installs plasterboard panels for Paco Mirandilla and Hermanos SL: there is still no known virtue that needs a justification.
The Brazilian footballer said in an interview with CNN that Spain must evolve by 2030 or, otherwise, FIFA should consider moving the World Cup to another venue where racism is not a problem. And he is probably right, because he is a black man who lives in Spain, I am not, so I will refrain from contradicting him for more than obvious reasons. I could, with some discomfort on my part, I admit, remind him that before then, in 2026, the World Cup will be held in the United States of America, which is not Wakanda either, that idyllic black city from the Marvel universe. And that the 2022 World Cup was held in Qatar without Vinicius Jr. raising his voice even a little. And here is the second trap.
It is he, insulted and aggrieved, who is required to meet a series of requirements in order not to flirt with the idea that he deserves everything that is happening to him. That it is his behaviour, not always exemplary, that provokes racists, and not racism. Vinicius Jr. is insisted upon in this type of maximalist approach (either all or nothing, or he denounces every case of racism that has occurred in the world or he should shut up) in order to continue insisting on the fantasy that we are not as racist as the racist cries in our stadiums might suggest, but that it is Vinicius Jr. who is not taking his fight seriously. At this rate, the Brazilian will be blamed for having encouraged insults against Peter Federico or for having elevated Juan Cala to the position of television commentator.
The fact that Vinicius Jr. is an athlete with deplorable attitudes and behaviour that borders on the childish and the hooligan does not justify, for a single moment, any type of insult or racist behaviour that he may suffer on or off the football pitch, it only accentuates it. A black man has every right in the world to behave like an idiot without you, or I, yelling at him or throwing a banana at him: perhaps he can be told that he behaves like an idiot, but the other thing is racism no matter how it is disguised. And Spain’s adventure on the road to the 2030 World Cup would start badly if, long before naming a mascot, we already have to be disguising things. Or burning rubber against Vinicius Jr. for not knowing how to keep quiet, a bit like those children who in front of the guests betray their parents for having hidden the money.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
